There also may be a couple of other would-be documentaries in the works, but the Miller-Steinberg production is official, said Friedman spokeswoman Laura Stromberg.

"Only the L.A. crew has exclusive 'rights' to Kinky and a contract with him," she said.

Began as a pilot

The project apparently grew out of earlier pilot episodes the same two producers shot of Friedman's campaign for a

Go Kinky
reality show that didn't get picked up on CMT, the country music network.

No one is saying how much money Friedman may gain from the documentary deal.

"It's unclear," said Miller, who declined to discuss finances.

"Kinky's not doing this documentary for financial reasons," he said.

Although Friedman has made his living as an entertainer and a writer and is an accomplished self-promoter, he can be prickly at suggestions that he launched his candidacy mainly to push his latest book or to otherwise enrich himself, ideas that his opponents like to promote.

He insists he really wants to be governor.

Miller said the documentary was his idea. He said he used to produce political commercials for television but never has shot a documentary on a governor's race.

He said he has known Friedman for years and appreciates his talent.

"The reason for doing (the movie) is that it's a tremendous story, and it has a real place in history," the producer said, indicating he may try to sell the project to the big screen as well as TV networks.

Book speculation

There has been speculation that Friedman also has a contract to write a book, presumably a very irreverent one, about his experiences on the campaign trail, but he denies that.

"I wish I did," he said. "Probably, if I win the thing, we could get a fat book deal. America likes winners."

A funny, Kinky-style book about a losing race also "would make a good book," the candidate added. "But I would have to write it in the next 50 days."

He said he hasn't started writing a campaign-based book.

Friedman's agent, David Vigliano of New York, has a habit of corralling celebrities — some instant and some more durable — for book proposals.

Last spring, Stromberg told my colleague Peggy Fikac that Friedman was working on a short children's Christmas book, A Christmas Pig, that adults also could appreciate.

I don't know what the status of that project is now. But Stromberg noted then: "He does have a personal income to think about — like the lawyer and the comptroller and the governor (referring to his three major opponents).

"They have their day jobs. This is his."

Friedman's "day job" makes me suspect he will write a book about the governor's race, regardless of the outcome, sometime after Nov. 7.

And it will be a lot kinkier than your typical political science treatise on the three branches of state government.